Since the moment privatization and the economy of an “eastern” neoliberalism was rolled out in Iran during the administration of Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) through its ripening in the Rouhani years, they have, beside their other results, created a class of poor and destitute people who have viewed their own meager prospects as being bound to the very government which in fact saps their lifeblood. Owing to their dependence on government aid, these people have always been the greatest supporters of those in power. Because of economic challenges posed by various administrations' adjustment policies and international sanctions, this burgeoning class has widened to include the classical middle class and is now at the end of its rope, in just the fashion Fyodor Dostoevsky describes in his Notes from the Underground. It should come as no surprise that this class tends to see itself as opposed to all the factions of Iran’s two-party system (conservatives and reformists). In fact, it is the very thing the system in power has not been able to accomplish – unifying the government – that masses of protesters are doing now. This time around, protesters chant against all factions and cliques: reformists, conservatives, middle classes, and the whole governing class have been called into question. [...]
The moment he threw his hat into the ring for the presidency, Rouhani presented himself as heir to the legacy of Hashemi Rafsanjani and christened himself a moderate with neoliberal economic policies. In such a situation of moderation, nothing in fact remains moderate: in order to construct a moderate position, things must be done away with, voices silenced, and terms changed in advance. In an age that proclaims itself moderate, moderation in fact always goes to shambles. A number of Rouhani’s policies are carried out in the name of moderation and adjustment: changes in labor law, bank loan conditions, and housing programs; the employment plan; the introduction of tuition at universities and remaking of curricula. But they are in fact brimming with radicalism, a plot to conserve and entrench class divides. A controlled parliamentary democracy on the neoliberal model is the preferred political mode of the age, and the instrument of its advancement is a weakening of the role of the human sciences and a removal of all intellectuals save for free-market economists from the circle of major decision-making. [...]
If violence should break out during the protests, it is but a part of this totality, an expression of the everyday situation. This is why the imprisonment and arrest of people and their means of communication on the pretext of national security is, despite its populist gloss, in fact a strategy which is against the people and the reality of things - and thus unacceptable. The protests are the outcome of our circumstance and nothing else, e.g., the meddling of a foreign enemy. The efforts of both wings of Iranian politics to justify their ignorance and fear of protestors with charges of “agitation” and working for a foreign power, will disillusion their last hope. “Reform” means being answerable to the current situation – not denying it.
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